Scale-Up of the Electrodeposition of ZnO/Eosin Y Hybrid Thin Films for the Fabrication of Flexible Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Modules

Abstract

The low-temperature fabrication of flexible ZnO photo-anodes for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) by templated electrochemical deposition of films was performed in an enlarged and technical simplified deposition setup to demonstrate the feasibility of the scale-up of the deposition process. After extraction of eosin Y (EY) from the initially deposited ZnO/EY hybrid films, mesoporous ZnO films with an area of about 40 cm2 were reproducibly obtained on fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO)-glass as well as flexible indium tin oxide (ITO)–polyethylenterephthalate (PET) substrates. With a film thickness of up to 9 µm and a high specific surface area of up to about 77 m2·cm−3 the ZnO films on the flexible substrates show suitable properties for DSSCs. Operative flexible DSSC modules proved the suitability of the ZnO films for use as DSSC photo-anodes. Under a low light intensity of about 0.007 sun these modules achieved decent performance parameters with conversion efficiencies of up to 2.58%. With rising light intensity the performance parameters deteriorated, leading to conversion efficiencies below 1% at light intensities above 0.5 sun. The poor performance of the modules under high light intensities can be attributed to their high series resistances.

Progress on Electrolytes Development in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

“…Although the future prospects of crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells are promising, issues, such as their complicated fabrication process, long energy payback time, and use of hazardous chemicals, may open up growth-opportunities for other PV technologies in the future. Third-generation PV technologies, such as dye-sensitized solar cells or perovskite solar cells, have high potential for industrial scale manufacturing, as they can be produced while using established scalable manufacturing methods, such as screen printing, inkjet printing, or slot die coating [6,7,8,9,10].…”

“…The classical n-type dye-sensitized solar cells (typically referred as “DSSCs”) among the other existing third-generation PV technologies have broadly been studied since 1991 after the ground-breaking work that Grätzel and O’Reagan published [11]. DSSCs offer numerous inherent advantages, such as low costs production, facile fabrication schemes, use of cheap and abundantly available materials (e.g., TiO 2 and carbon-based materials), and the possibility of using scalable material deposition methods in their deposition over traditional fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO)-Glass substrates and options for translating this traditional rigid device structure over flexible substrates [6,7]. DSSCs also exhibit higher performance under low- and indoor-light conditions than the other photovoltaic technologies [12].…”

Design and implementation of a feedback programmable spin coating system

“…Thin film deposition technique plays a key role in the electronic and optical applications manufacturing. Various techniques have been used to deposit thin films, including sputtering [1], chemical vapor deposition [2], thermal evaporation [3], spray pyrolysis [4], dip-coating [5,6], electro-deposition [7] and spin coating [8]. As compared to other deposition techniques, spin coating is faster, easier, cheaper and need a small amount of depositing material [9].…”

Optimizing room temperature binder free TiO 2 paste for high efficiency flexible polymer dye sensitized solar cells

“…24,25,26 Doctor blade method is the most common method employed for the film preparation using binder free TiO2 paste. 27 Direct deposition methods such as spray deposition, 28 chemical vapour deposition, 29 pulse laser deposition, 30 electrodeposition, 31 and electrophoretic deposition, 32 are used for the TiO2 film deposition on polymer flexible substrates. Additional steps are needed to improve the inter-particle necking between the TiO2 nanoparticles with good mechanical stability and adhesion of films without damaging the conductive layer of the polymer flexible substrates.…”